Anyone have any options for a Premiere? Tried to upgrade / copy the HD to a 2 TB, and now the original drive won't work - MFS tools says not a tivo drive, and plugging it into the TV, says Welcome, Please wait" for about 30 seconds, then reboots then repeats.

MFS Tools says not a TiVo drive?

Did you actually try to use the by now ancient MFS Tools, or do you mean MFS Live, or do you mean WinMFS?

What version of what operating system were you running WinMFS on when you tried to go from the original drive to the 2TB?

(I thought you needed to use the comer cd for that)

Was the 2TB new, blank, and unformatted?

Well, long story short - I initially tried the boot CD. I can't recall which one now, and tried to do the copy. No, the 2TB drive wasn't new blank and unformatted. (Unfortunately the instructions I found didn't say that was needed ). The command gave an error, and at that point searching for solutions I cam across WinMFS. But I think at that point, it was too late. When I tried WinMFS, it then said Not a Tivo drive on the original Tivo drive, which now appears to be DOA. I contacted Tivo support, as the unit is still under Warranty but I have a feeling they may be able to determine I tried something like this and void my warranty. so I think my only option now is to somehow do a restore from a image of a Premiere, if I can find one, onto either the original drive or preferably, the 2 TB drive.

Well, long story short - I initially tried the boot CD. I can't recall which one now, and tried to do the copy. No, the 2TB drive wasn't new blank and unformatted. (Unfortunately the instructions I found didn't say that was needed ). The command gave an error, and at that point searching for solutions I cam across WinMFS. But I think at that point, it was too late. When I tried WinMFS, it then said Not a Tivo drive on the original Tivo drive, which now appears to be DOA. I contacted Tivo support, as the unit is still under Warranty but I have a feeling they may be able to determine I tried something like this and void my warranty. so I think my only option now is to somehow do a restore from a image of a Premiere, if I can find one, onto either the original drive or preferably, the 2 TB drive.

I was wondering if somehow part of the 2TB got written to the original TiVo drive instead of the other way around.

It sounds as though you didn't do nearly enough reading and research about the specifics of Premiere drive upgrading (as opposed to TiVo drive upgrading in general) before you tried it, and since I know next to nothing about Premiere-specific upgrading, someone who does might have to be the one to diagnose what you did wrong and what it caused to happen to the original drive.

Perhaps you could ask for an image (and instructions) at that "other" site that can't be mentioned here.

I was wondering if somehow part of the 2TB got written to the original TiVo drive instead of the other way around.

It sounds as though you didn't do nearly enough reading and research about the specifics of Premiere drive upgrading (as opposed to TiVo drive upgrading in general) before you tried it, and since I know next to nothing about Premiere-specific upgrading, someone who does might have to be the one to diagnose what you did wrong and what it caused to happen to the original drive.

Perhaps you could ask for an image (and instructions) at that "other" site that can't be mentioned here.

Does that site have in its name a part of the human body located in the middle of the leg?

As for whether the 2TB had anything on it or not, WinMFS should have happily overwritten it with no problems provided you didn't make a mistake telling it which drive to copy to which drive. It's not impossible that Windows did something to screw up your TiVo drive before you and WinMFS had a chance to.

Ummm.. it's a HP laptop. Windows 7. Well - ok, sorry, the first attempt was on a old desktop. Can't recall what brand. But the laptop I'm now using WinMFS tools on is a HP.

But regardless, I'm pretty confident the dirve is toast. It's under warranty so worst case, tivo will 'fix' it for $49, but I was hoping to get er done this weekend...

Reason I asked, GigaByte motherboards the past several years have a nasty habit of putting something called a Host Protected Area on hard drives that screws up a TiVo drive real good, and that might account for your original drive no longer being recognized.

and it'll show if you've got an HPA or something like it, and if you do, it might be fixable.

Also, you can download the drive manufacturer's diagnostic software and burn a bootable cd of it and test the drive to see if, by co-incidence, it just happened to go bad while you were TiVo wrangling.

And, have you tried any of the kickstart procedures?

Also, that start screen and then reboot is sometimes a symptom of a good drive but a bad Tivo motherboard or power supply.

Reason I asked, GigaByte motherboards the past several years have a nasty habit of putting something called a Host Protected Area on hard drives that screws up a TiVo drive real good, and that might account for your original drive no longer being recognized.

and it'll show if you've got an HPA or something like it, and if you do, it might be fixable.

Also, you can download the drive manufacturer's diagnostic software and burn a bootable cd of it and test the drive to see if, by co-incidence, it just happened to go bad while you were TiVo wrangling.

And, have you tried any of the kickstart procedures?

Also, that start screen and then reboot is sometimes a symptom of a good drive but a bad Tivo motherboard or power supply.

Ok, let me try that - I'm not sure what version of mfs tools I had, and murphys law, my burner crapped out on me so whatever version I had is what I'm stuck wth

Reason I asked, GigaByte motherboards the past several years have a nasty habit of putting something called a Host Protected Area on hard drives that screws up a TiVo drive real good, and that might account for your original drive no longer being recognized.

and it'll show if you've got an HPA or something like it, and if you do, it might be fixable.

Also, you can download the drive manufacturer's diagnostic software and burn a bootable cd of it and test the drive to see if, by co-incidence, it just happened to go bad while you were TiVo wrangling.

And, have you tried any of the kickstart procedures?

Also, that start screen and then reboot is sometimes a symptom of a good drive but a bad Tivo motherboard or power supply.

Ok, got MFS Live booted, however I don't see my HD (But yes - it is seen by the computer since I accidentally booted to it).

I do see in shift page up it appears to be ata2 or ata2.00 but when I try ata2 or ata2.00 with the above command it says /dev/ata2: no such file or directory

Ok, got MFS Live booted, however I don't see my HD (But yes - it is seen by the computer since I accidentally booted to it).

I do see in shift page up it appears to be ata2 or ata2.00 but when I try ata2 or ata2.00 with the above command it says /dev/ata2: no such file or directory

That ata is the ata in SATA or PATA, and refers more to the method of the controller talking to and controlling the drive than it does the particular port.

See if the stuff that flies past during boot that you have to go back up to read says anything about /dev/hda (device/hard drive a) or /dev/sda (device/SCSI, or, nowadays SATA, or USB, basically anything that's not PATA).

Probably best at this point to only have the cd drive booting MFS Live and the original TiVo drive attached to the computer.

Then you can do

fdisk -l

(that's a lowercase "L", not an uppercase "i")

That should give you an idea of what the OS loaded into memory by the cd is calling your hard drive.

If fdisk -l seems to choke, it might be because it encounteres the CD-ROM/DVD drive first, which means that it's hooked up as /dev/hda or as /dev/sda.

If so, do

fdisk -l /dev/sda

If that doesn't work, do

fdisk -l /dev/sdb

if necessary

fdisk -l /dev/sdc

and

fdisk -l /dev/sdd

Then, once you have the right thing to call it (I'm going to use /dev/sda from here on out to illustrate)

Or maybe not, I've had that and other "Live" cd's (the kind that load an OS into memory) go wonky during booting a time or three.

Usually just turning it off and letting it set for 10 to 30 minutes and trying again is successful. If it's a desktop computer you can, after turning it off and pulling the AC cord, unplug the other internal cords and cables and then plug them back in, being sure that they are firmly and properly seated, then hook the AC back up and try again.

If it's a laptop, maybe disassembly and reassembly isn't the way to go.

If you're using USB connections and adapters double check them for good solid connections.

I have a laptop I can try from, but on the laptop, I'd have to use SATA to USB. Will the MFS Live recognize that (install all the proper drivers and such?

Also maybe I'm not understanding "Graphical mode" - I select that and still get a command prompt CLI type interface?

Haven't yet had time today to look any further into your problem, but as for the graphical mode on the MFS Live cd boot options, I think that lets it use "pictures" of numbers, letters, and symbols instead of what the computer itself has built into its BIOS chip, which can be pretty 1981-ish clunky looking.

Are you saying that the desktop PC you first tried on definitely has a GigaByte brand motherboard?

Haven't yet had time today to look any further into your problem, but as for the graphical mode on the MFS Live cd boot options, I think that lets it use "pictures" of numbers, letters, and symbols instead of what the computer itself has built into its BIOS chip, which can be pretty 1981-ish clunky looking.

Are you saying that the desktop PC you first tried on definitely has a GigaByte brand motherboard?

Oh - I get it... Not a GUI.

I'll see if I can see the motherboard. No, not 100% sure it's a gigabit MoBo. I want to say it's an HP or Compaq computer, but can't recall what model. I'll see if I can find out tonight.

Thanks again for all your help. If you ever make it to Fremont, CA, drinks on me

I'll see if I can see the motherboard. No, not 100% sure it's a gigabit MoBo. I want to say it's an HP or Compaq computer, but can't recall what model. I'll see if I can find out tonight.

Thanks again for all your help. If you ever make it to Fremont, CA, drinks on me

Don't know if I can wait that long for a drink in this heat, but I appreciate the thought (and I'll start calculating how long a straw I'd need to reach from here in NC to there).

A "name-brand" computer isn't likely to have a GigaByte board, but since they tend to do all sorts of other secret proprietary stuff*, who knows what might have happened.

*A few years ago, Dell had machines with what looked like ATX power supplies with what looked like ATX power supply plugs and motherboards with what looked like ATX power supply sockets. People who replace their power supplies with non-Dell units soon discovered that they didn't put the same voltages on the same pins. (Not sure if they followed the same color code for the wires as everyone else or not)

Once upon a time, Compaq computers had "secret" hidden partitons on the hard drive with recovery files or part of the BIOS or something that required booting with a special floppy if you needed to access it to fix something, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have the motherboards set up to automatically create one of those partitions on any hard drive that happened to be connected to it later.

Don't know if I can wait that long for a drink in this heat, but I appreciate the thought (and I'll start calculating how long a straw I'd need to reach from here in NC to there).

A "name-brand" computer isn't likely to have a GigaByte board, but since they tend to do all sorts of other secret proprietary stuff*, who knows what might have happened.

*A few years ago, Dell had machines with what looked like ATX power supplies with what looked like ATX power supply plugs and motherboards with what looked like ATX power supply sockets. People who replace their power supplies with non-Dell units soon discovered that they didn't put the same voltages on the same pins. (Not sure if they followed the same color code for the wires as everyone else or not)

Once upon a time, Compaq computers had "secret" hidden partitons on the hard drive with recovery files or part of the BIOS or something that required booting with a special floppy if you needed to access it to fix something, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have the motherboards set up to automatically create one of those partitions on any hard drive that happened to be connected to it later.

Anyone have any suggestions or even better, an image for a Premiere? Payday is next Friday, and at that point, I'll have to bite the bullet and sent it to Tivo for repair (assuming they will cover it), but would like to avoid paying the $50 if possible...

Going through withdrawls.

And then I'm back at square one. I'll be afraid to try to do the upgrade again.